


What's In A Name?

by greengrlelphie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 10:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greengrlelphie/pseuds/greengrlelphie
Summary: Octavia's reflection of herself.





	What's In A Name?

Blodreina.

Skairipa. 

Octavia.

O.

So many names. So many different faces. Octavia stared at herself in the mirror and ran her hands through her hair. One hundred and twenty-five years had passed, but she wasn’t a day over twenty-three. Yet she felt like she was a thousand. Everyone was waking up out of cryo and it wasn’t her brother’s face she saw when she woke as she hoped. Niylah was the one who woke her when everyone else insisted that she stay asleep. Her heart sank when she realized that everyone, especially her own brother, still hated her. Bellamy still did not understand the gravity of the situation in the bunker which drove her to the extremes that she had to in order to survive. To keep as many people alive as possible. She wished she could go back to who she was.

O. The nickname Bellamy had given her for as long as she could remember. Even though he had given her her name, he still liked to call her O because it was special between the two of them. When she was scared of going under the floor when their rooms were checked, he would tell her “You don’t have to be scared O, it’s just for a little while”. To be brave and just close her eyes and it would be over soon. Bell had been one of the only two people she knew for the first sixteen years of her life and had kept her safe. He had been the first person she looked for when things went bad because he knew what to say to make it okay again. He told her stories and read her books. He was her first best friend and her big brother. And he had been the one who taught her right from wrong. When she was locked up in solitary for a year, she would try to think about all the times that she played games with her brother and he would let her win, just to have a happy memory. It was the only bits of sanity she had. Holding onto that kept her from losing all hope.

Octavia. Her given name and what most everyone else called her. It was the name of Augustus the Roman Emperor’s younger sister. Bellamy always loved mythology and history, so when their mother asked him to name her the day she was born, he wanted to give her a strong name. And she tried to live up to that strength, even when their mother was floated and she was in solitary confinement. A year without anyone to talk to and people whispering around her that she was the “girl under the floor”. When they were sent to Earth, she was the first to touch ground in over one hundred years. She saw the beauty of it...chasing butterflies and jumping into water for the first time. And then she met Lincoln. He saw something more than just the girl under the floor or Bellamy’s little sister. He saw Octavia, the warrior. And Octavia, the woman. He loved her as she was, faults and all, and taught her to be more than herself. With him, she felt like she could do anything and tackle any problem. It was because of him that she became a second and learned to fight. And it was because of him that she was broken. Watching him die was the turning point in changing her. Seeing the man she loved down on his knees while Pike put a gun to his head and killed him was enough to shove a dagger into her heart and murder Octavia herself. She wasn’t the girl who chased butterflies anymore. That girl died the minute Lincoln was killed.

Skairipa. The assassin. The name given to one who came from above to take the lives of those who crossed her and her people. A lifetime of loss had hardened her and made her resilient, equipping her with the best weapons. Hate and revenge. Neither would bring back the man she loved, but it was all she had left to cling to. Her brother was the one she blamed because his choices lead to Pike being placed in charge and the grounders being rounded up and distrusted. The threat of Alie put that hate on hold. She defended Clarke while she shut down Alie, but after that she killed Pike and walked away. She didn’t know where to go but when Echo tracked her down, she was forced to fight again. She went over that cliff and still survived. Ilian helped her heal physically but when she put a gun to his head after he burned Arkadia, their chance of survival from the oncoming slaughter of another end of the world, she saw Lincoln. Kane reminded her of that hellish ordeal. Every moment of it. So she left. Skairipa became Octavia again, who wanted to die in the black rain. She wanted to end it all because of all the pain she felt from losing the one person she loved most. Ilian stopped her. She tried to let him in and tried to live in peace after, but her violent past caught up to her again. And again, she was called on to kill. To compete in the conclave for the survival of her people. But in reality, for all of the people. Lincoln reminded her that they were all one people, so she fought for them all to share the bunker to ride out Praimfiya.

Blodreina. The Red Queen. The persona forced upon a seventeen-year-old girl forced to lead when she asked time and time again not to be the leader that they all appointed her to be. Heavy was the crown laid on her head. She was not a leader. She wasn’t Lexa. Or Clarke. Or Bellamy. Octavia was a scared kid who had no clue how to maintain thirteen groups of people peacefully for at least five years in close quarters. But everyone looked to her but gave no solutions or ideas. Kane. Abby. Jaha. None of them stepped up to help. Or to take any of the burden from her. The fighting pits were the only way to maintain any kind of law and order. No one offered any other solution or tried to help her. Even in the dark year, when Abby suggested cannibalism when the farms were failing and to make it a crime to refuse, she took the brunt of it for her people. So that they would survive. It broke her in the worst way. But she bore it so her people wouldn’t have to. 

All of the things that had happened strung together to make her the woman she was now. She was a monster. But it had not been by her own hand. No one understood the burden she had to bear alone or how horrified she was at the things she had to do to ensure the survival of her people. None of them knew that she begged for other options or that she was permanently scarred from how it had all come down. Abby and Kane acted as though they had done nothing wrong and that they tried to help. And everyone believed them. Because who would believe a kid? The kid they all made their leader when she was willing to die in a conclave. Everyone was quick to judge without offering other solutions to the problems they faced. Kane would have rather they all starved to death. Abby suggested the cannibalism and to make it a crime to refuse, but did she take any of the blame? No. Every single person looked to her and blamed her without knowing any of the truth of the chain of events that lead them there.

Staring in the mirror, she saw all of them inside her. Buried behind the hardened exterior of Blodreina and Skairipa was still Octavia. The girl who once believed in stories and chased blue butterflies on the ground. Bellamy’s little sister. No one could see that anymore. Everyone only saw the monster. And maybe that was all that was left to offer as they couldn’t see the girl drowning inside of herself.


End file.
